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Paper 1 - Epistemologies of Plato and Aristotle
Paper 1 - Epistemologies of Plato and Aristotle
Robert Godlewski
This paper will compare the epistemologies of Aristotle and Plato, specifically their ideas of
knowledge and what it consists of. I will claim that the foundations of modern knowledge are
more closely related to Aristotle's ideas rather than to Plato's. This will require an invalidation of
Plato's concepts of knowledge which will be provided in Section II. In Section III, I will explain
Aristotle's views on the source of knowledge and how it is created as well as developed over
time. Section IV will detail the reasons why modern thinking follows Aristotle's views.
Plato takes a more divine stance on the source of knowledge throughout his writings. In the
Platonic Doctrine of Recollection, Plato believes that all humans are born with all the knowledge
they will ever achieve the chance to possess. The goal of the human is to discover, or rather to
excavate that knowledge from within him or herself. It is stated in this text (380 B.C.E., Meno's
line 94) that the soul inside the human body once lived in "realism" but somehow became
trapped inside the body and in the process "forgot" all of what it knew. The doctrine implies that
nothing can ever be learned but rather must be recalled through the use of the senses.
The doctrine suggests that we as humans already know everything there is to know and it is
technically possible for us to recall everything we "forgot", which according to Plato himself
means everything there is and will be possible to know. Notwithstanding the possibility of this
idea being true, we must first and most importantly truly understand the difference between
forgetting something and not knowing it at all. When one forgets something, it takes only a short
explanation or a quick glimpse to recall it back from memory. However, when one does not
know something at all or has never knew it before, a much longer and more precise explanation
is required.
Take for example recalling versus learning mathematics, specifically the field of Calculus. If we
were to follow Plato's idea of knowledge, we would be subjected into believing that all that
would be required to grasp Calculus in all its glory would be a simple explanation, such as a
single example of one of its subfields. Although a few very talented individuals located around
the world might possess the talent of understanding such a complex field of mathematics through
a single example or short explanation, the vast majority of all humans require multiple
explanations or lectures along with a plethora of examples. And yet, even after these long
explanations, some still do not achieve a complete understanding of the field, or in the words of
Plato, still are not capable of recalling the knowledge from within their body.
In The Republic, Plato (360 B.C.E., Book II) states that the sun is the source of the knowledge
for the soul and refers to it as "The Form of the Good". Through the eyes, which are different
from all the other sensory organs in that they require outside help, specifically illumination in
order to work , the soul has learned everything there is to know. Without the sun the soul would
know absolutely nothing as it would not be able to see anything. Additionally, Plato argues that
the sun is the creator of all objects and events because there being colors in the world and things
to see is a direct result of different beams of sunlight shining from different directions.
Contrary to Plato's premises for his argument, the eyes are not the only organs that require
outside help in order to function. The ears require a medium for sound to travel through to reach
them as does the nose which requires air for it to properly sense smell. Furthermore, there are
objects which cannot be seen while the sun is providing illumination, such as stars and there are
also objects that cannot be seen at all, such as air. To agree with Plato's description of knowledge
we must set the above exceptions aside, which even though it would give Plato's ideas a greater
chance of being correct, it would force us to ignore the laws of the real world.
In Allegory of the Cave, an allegory created by Plato (CrystalLinks, The Myth of the Cave) to
support his idea of the soul being trapped by the body, he gives the example of a prisoner being
chained to a cave wall since his childhood and exposed only to a few shadows constantly moving
on this wall. For the entire time, the prisoner would be led to believe that the shadows he is
seeing are the real world and that it consists of only these shadows and nothing else. But when he
is finally released and allowed to look behind him, he refuses to accept the fact that the shadows
were mere visual tricks of the actual and realistic events taking place behind him. In the allegory,
he likens humans as being the prisoners and refusing to accept his ideas of knowledge and the
When this allegory is coupled with Plato's Theory of Forms (Banach, 2006), an argument is
founded which attempts to persuade that what we are seeing in front of us is not real but instead
only mimics reality. Allegory of the Cave describes that, because we have only been shown this
fantasy and not reality, we take the former to be the true and the later to be false. Plato states that
because we are prisoners, we can only be saved from this apparent incorrect thinking by the
philosophers of history, including Plato himself. Philosophers attempt to take us by the hand and
release our jailed perceptions but we refuse to place our belief in them, thus we are doomed to
Even though the ideas of knowledge in both of these works certainly seem plausible at first, we
must couple them with Plato's other ideas in other to check their consistency. If according to
Plato's Platonic Doctrine of Recollection, our belief in something is a result of excavating it from
memory, and furthermore, if anything excavated from memory is true because it has come from
the previous real world, logic provides us and the prisoners no other option but to consider the
shadows on the cave wall as being the real world. Thus one is presented with the dissention that
the logical conclusion taken from Allegory of the Cave directly contradicts the logic in the
Aristotle's views on the source of knowledge strictly adhere to the principles of logic. He shares
most of his ideas of knowledge and observations of the world in a work titled Metaphysics.
Although this work consists of many other sub-works or books, Aristotle's final conclusion about
knowledge is that every object consists of both matter and form and that one cannot exist without
the other (Hooker, 1999, The Classification of Knowledge). He states that humans achieve
knowledge through observation of an object's form and actions rather than through reason.
Unlike Plato, Aristotle believes that the goal is not to recall everything but instead to observe the
His work stands by the idea that all things are created using two pertinent entities, matter and
form. Matter is simply a medium to hold an object's form. It cannot exist by itself because it
would not have a unique definition of its purpose and instructions for how it should interact with
other matter. Without form, all matter is the same in that it is a null entity and cannot be seen as
there is no way to differentiate it from other matter. Form provides a set of instructions and a
According to Aristotle, without form one object cannot be different from another object as there
is nothing for them to differentiate each other through. For example, a block of gold is no
different from a bucket of water - the two are just undefined matter and nothing more. However,
once form is added to the two objects, they can differentiate themselves through the differences
in their form. The gold's form can state that its matter should be heavy and a solid while the
bucket of water's form can state that its matter should be normal in weight and a liquid.
An object's form is important in the world because it is what provides something for a human to
observe. When one observes a block of gold, they notice that it is yellow is color, glossy, heavy,
hard, and in one piece. All of these properties have been defined by the matter's form. An object
interacting with another object does this through its properties, which again, are defined by its
matter's form.
Aside from a religious point of view, it is valid to state that all modern thinking is a result of the
observation of its interaction, or form. The laws of physics for example, must always be proven
means of finding the answer for the composition of the object's in question form. Additionally,
everything about the object and its form must be proven completely as guessing is not
In another example, the field of chemistry determines that values of foundational elements in the
Periodic Table of Element through the testing of their forms. Each element, without its form
consists only of undefined matter and is undistinguishable from the other elements. When form
is considered during testing and experimentation, chemists are able to understand the differences
In the field of biology, knowledge of the composition and interaction of diseases and medicine is
crucial. All diseases and medicine are composed of identical matter but their forms vary. The
differences in their forms are the reason why some medicines are more effective against some
diseases and vice versa. Through the observation of their forms, biologists can determine which
V. Conclusion
Even though Plato does make valid statements that seem plausible, such as in The Republic
where he states that the sun is the source of all knowledge, his arguments lack the support
necessary to make possible conclusions. By most standards, it is considered true that without the
sun the human would not be able to gather knowledge but the idea that the sun is the source of it
Aristotle's ideas are supported by the process through which today's discoveries and conclusions
are developed. All fields of science, especially physics, chemistry, and biology depend on the
observation of an object's interactions with another object. Without observation of the object's
properties, or rather form, scientists can only make mere guesses. Thus, the only correct way to
gain knowledge is to observe not just the object's matter but also and more importantly, its form.
Given this, one can conclude that because modern thinking is based off of observation of the
interaction and composition of objects, Aristotle's ideas of knowledge are more favorable and
References
Creatorix 'Plato The Idealist', Creatorix
<http://www.creatorix.com.au/philosophy/04/04f09.html>
<http://www.crystalinks.com/plato.html>
David Banach (2006, II. The Forms) 'Plato's Theory of Forms', St. Anselm College
<http://www.anselm.edu/homepage/dbanach/platform.htm>
Garth Kemerling (2001) 'Plato: Immortality and the Forms', Philosophy Pages
<http://www.philosophypages.com/hy/2f.htm>
<http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~dee/GREECE/ARIST.HTM>
<http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/republic.html>
<http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/meno.html>
The Philosopher's Lighthouse (first link on bottom navigation) 'Plato's Thoughts on Knowledge',